


Vicious Days

by Yeah_Toast



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Fae, Apocalypse, Arguing, Assassin Five, Assassination, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Baggage, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fae & Fairies, Fae Culture, Fae Magic, Five has a friend, Five is a little Dark, Found Family, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, His morals aren't based on our culture, I'm Bad At Tagging, Loneliness, Loss, Magic, Major Original Character(s), Number Five | The Boy-centric, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, POV Third Person, Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Apocalypse, The Commission, Work In Progress, and, he wasn't alone in the apocalypse, morally grey Five, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_Toast/pseuds/Yeah_Toast
Summary: When Five jumps forwards to the apocalypse, he comes across more than just the gloomy and desolate sight of everything he's ever known burning. In the dark days following the loss of his family, Five makes one of his own choosing and together they unite to fix the past.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Original Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prologue is in this point of view, but the next chapter will be Five.

There are days that he is relieved by it; the absence of responsibilities. He always feels shame after that thought though, shame and grief. He would not willingly give what he has lost just for relief from responsibility, it is not fair to the others.

The others.

There are none left these days. He’s long since been the only one left to carry on the ways of his people; and he was never once a good example of them. He wonders at that often, if his own peculiarities are what saved him during the massacre of his people.

He hadn’t been gone long, only twenty minutes, just a quick jaunt to the human realm he’d promised himself, one last goodbye before he assumed the position of his father as Khigani of their clan.

_ He steps through the portal without a care in the world; it is time to move on, to assume the responsibility of Khigani and lead his clan.  _

_ It is the smell that hits him first; the sharp tang of smoke, and the twisted scent of burnt flesh. His nose is refined enough that he recognizes the sent as something other, something that is not any beast his people consume. It frightens him. _

_ Next, his eyes came to rest on his home, or at least what was once his home. What was once a beautiful shining temple, home to Faa'at the Great in the Akhenxi’s days of conquest, is now nothing more than a pile of smoldering ruins. All around it, more of the same destruction surrounds him. The Pools of Rushant run black with the soot of his home, and he searches desperately for a sign of life, of anyone he once knew. _

_ He finds the body of his betrothed, broken and bloodied, near the Pools. It is obvious, to him at least that his spouse to be had crawled there, half dead, seeking the guidance of the gods in their final moments. _

He had searched, for days and days, for any survivors. His quest had taken him from the homeland of his clan, all across the world; nothing living had remained. Eventually, after weeks and months of nothing, he had declared it a lost cause, and he had returned to the human realm once more. 

He had been met with more destruction there, and a sense of despair stronger than ever before. It seems not even the humans remained. 

He remains on the human realm, searching the lands for an explanation, an idea as to what happened. If the destruction of the two worlds are related; this is how his answers will come. The Fae Realm exists outside of time; the damage there cannot be undone, but whatever calamity has struck Earth may be reversible.

He has been there mere days when he finally finds a living soul; a young boy in a strange uniform, digging graves with his bare hands. He watches quietly as the boy, sobbing, digs his hands into the dark earth. His nails chip and bend, but the boy does not slow. Soil coats his entire being, but he shovels the earth using cupped palms, until the hole is deep enough for him to roll a single body into. 

“Goodbye, Number Three.” The boy whispers. He covers her slowly, as if reluctant to finally close this door in his life. 

It is when the boy begins digging again, when his hands begin to leak blood from their various cracks and scrapes, that he finally makes himself known.

“Boy,” he greets, dropping the glamour that had concealed him. “Tell me of what happened here?”

His current form, taken on when he had first seen the boy, is older than the boy. Were he human, one would say that he looked to be about twenty years old. Still, he made no move to appear human, what would be the point? The inhuman aspects of his features, from his pointed teeth to silver eyes were the least of this boy’s issues. Besides, a little fear never hurt anyone, not to badly, he thinks, as even a Fae like him, one considered mild by his people, has the wild in his heart.

Surprisingly, although that may stem from his own difficulties in interpreting human emotion, the boy bursts into tears. Awkwardly, he pats the humans back, at a loss for what to do. Fae do not cry, and he is tempted to push the boy away, to demand that he pull himself together, but on the several expeditions he had taken to Earth to better understand the humans, he had only seen such behavior father resentment. He can not afford to do so with his only lead, not yet.

When the boy’s tears dry up, what feels like, even to a being of immortality, eons later, he is ready for answers. He allows the boy a moment to pull himself together, to formulate an expression of haughty, distaste, but he knows the true emotions that lie beneath his mask. Even if he cannot interpret them, he can taste them as he can taste the truth behind any lie.

“What happened here?”

“I don’t know,” the boy replies. His voice is soft, as though he will break at any moment. His eyes continue to flicker back at the one complete grave he has managed, as well as the other three bodies accompanying it. 

“Who are they?”

Tears prick the corner of the boys eyes, “My siblings.”

“I see.” He does not; he had only ever had one sibling, and Roan had been foolish enough to be captured by a human centuries ago, now he barely remembers his brother.

“How did you survive?” The boy asks him suddenly. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“I was not here when this occurred. I was in another place. I arrived only after the damage was done.”

“Who are you?” The boys eyes are wide, and the exhaustion is evident.

He smiles, “You may call me Wren. What is your name?”

He does not give his true name. Names hold power, even now, and even here, and he finds that he is unwilling to risk capture, even though he has nothing to return to. Old habits die hard.

The boy looks at him strangely. “I suppose after so long it makes sense that people would forget about me. I’m Number Five, from the Umbrella Academy.”

“Number Five,” Wren muses. “An interesting choice, why not a number of power, such as three or seven?”

“They were taken already,” Five’s reply is almost imperceptible. “Are there any other survivors?”

“There are none.” This answer, like everything Wren says, is the truth, albeit this is not  _ only  _ because Fae do not lie as some of his answers have been. He has long since sent tendrils of power out, feeling for life. The boy is all he found.

“Oh.” Five sounds defeated, and for a moment Wren is sympathetic; he too has lost everything, and this boy is so young in comparison to him. “Will you stay with me then?”

“For now,” he agrees, sure to promise nothing.

“Will you help me bury them?”

Wren pauses, thinking back on the corpse of his beloved, the loss of his entire realm, clan and enemies alike. He thinks about how alone he was, is. “I shall.”

Wren digs his toes into the ground, even now he wears no shoes, that is a human concept he will never understand, and the ground before them wrenches, until three new graves appear besides the one already filled. 

Five’s look is cold and assessing, and Wren meets his gaze easily. This is something he understands, the careful balance of friend and foe. He smiles a sharp tooth smile, and is pleased when the boy returns one of his own. His teeth may not have the throat tearing potential of Wren’s own, and yet his smile still adequately displays his willingness to make do despite this. 

Oh, yes, Wren thinks, this boy is Fae at heart.

They bury the remaining corpses in silence, and their search for shelter that night is much the same. They do not need words to tell one another that they are both dangerous in their own ways. 

It is only later that things change, that Five tells him slowly, haltingly, of how he came to find himself in the apocalypse. He admits to his arrogance, how he feels he failed his family, and Wren tells him much of the same. They both acknowledge the bond of two men who abandoned their families when needed most.

Wren speak of the Fae realm, of the destruction that can never be unwrought, and Five slowly, haltingly, reveals the prosthetic eye he had found clutched in Luther’s palm.

It was never the plan, but Wren stays. Somewhere along the way, Five had wormed his way into his very soul. The boy had the heart of the Fae, the wild ferocity found in even the youngest of babes, as well as the same sense of loyalty. 

It reminds Wren of home, much like Wren’s casual bluntness, and his total disregard for human manners reminds Five that he must live for more than his family, or at least his family that has passed. After all, what is Wren if not family at this point.

It pains Wren, to watch as his baby brother, for that is what Five has become, ages and he does not. Five, not earth, is what brought him peace after the loss of his realm; Five is his home now.

Wren does not count the years, though he knows that Five does, so when the day that Five encounters another soul comes, he does not know how long it has been since he met his brother. 

He is not even home when it happens; instead he is out gathering the necessary metals for the sword he is forging. He has finally decided that Five is prepared to learn the ways of Fae weaponry, and has just located a wood he likes for the hilt, when he feels it; a tear through time and space.

He drops the wood instantly, and begins to bound towards their camp. Desperate to find and warn Five, he pushes himself onwards with the power of the wind. It guides him from behind, lengthening his stride and cutting down on resistance.

He arrives just as the rip in time is torn again.

“What was that?” Wren asks, and Five explains.

He tells him of a woman, called only the handler, of how she offered him a return to his own time, and all he owed in return would be several years as a temporal assassin. He explains how he will be returned to his siblings if he accepts the offer.

“Go, Five. Why did you remain here?”

“I wanted to discuss it with you; going means that you will be here alone, who knows how long for.”

Wren shakes his head. “When you return to your time I will find you, the disconnect between time and the Fae realm means that I can choose the time in which I return to Earth. I could go there straight from here. In fact, I would have done so with you long ago if humans were able to leave the Fae realm after entry.”

“Promise me that you’ll come to me?” 

“Come to me, brother.” Five obeys, and Wren places a hand onto his shoulder. “When you arrive in your rightful time, I will find you.

“How?”

Wren’s smile is sharp, showing the same reckless abandon that has haunted him since the destruction of his realm. “Because, Five, you’ll call my true name.”

He leans in close, and whispers his true name to his brother. The words burn the back of his throat, he has not spoken them since the night of his betrothal, and to do so now brings back painful memories. Briefly, he wonders if this is a mistake, if Five will betray him, trap him and use him for his own needs. He banishes the thought quickly. They have been together now for decades, most of Five’s mortal life, and Five has always been a loyal soul. He will not betray him now.

When the Commission returns for Five, Wren watches from the shadows. He does not trust these people, but they are Five’s best shot at returning to his own time. Already, he had cautioned his brother to remain vigilant, and if he finds a way to escape without the help of the Commission, to take it. 

“Don’t worry,” Five had smiled, all teeth and rage, as he held up his battered copy of his sisters books with all of its many equations, “I will. They’re just a stepping stone for me; if I can find out how they travel between times, it will help me.”

“You’d have been an excellent Fae.”


	2. Chapter One

The commision is brutal.

They train Five, though they quickly find that he’s already been trained in a great deal, and simply needs refreshers in what his Father had once taught him. He does not allow them the privilege of seeing the tricks Wren had taught him. That is not their right.

He spends weeks learning his way around gun after gun, as well as poison, and how to make it seem like an accident. He doesn’t mind, not really, but the wait irks him. The time he owes the commission will not start running down until he is sent on his first mission, and he needs access to a briefcase to begin his assessment of how they travel.

“Dave Katz,” The Handler announces as she strolls into the room Five it training in.

“Who?”

The Handler’s smile is filled with a sadistic joy. “Your first target, Five. Congratulations, you’re about to finally begin your work as a member of The Commission.”

“Who is he?” Five asks, already attempting to figure out the importance of this mission, and how he can use it to his advantage.

“The who doesn’t matter to you,” The Handler informs him. “Only the when and where.”

Grudgingly, Five nods, “When?”

“1973, Vietnam.”

His eyebrows arch. “You’re sending me into the middle of a war?”

“Oh yes,” She cheers. “Get used to it now.”

Five chuckles darkly, “Oh, I will.”

As he treks through the jungles of Vietnam, waiting for the arrival of this strange Anerican Soldier whose death will supposedly keep the timeline on track, Five cannot help but think of Wren. One cannot simply forget about the only other face they saw for forty years, especially considering how close the two of them had grown. 

_ We will meet again,  _ Five promises himself.  _ I will make it back to my family, all of them. _

He finds the platoon he is looking for camped exactly where he was told they would be, and he bides his time, scribbling equations into his treasured copy of  _ Extra-Ordinary _ . Eventually, the Vietnamese will find them, and, when they do, Five will be able to ensure that his target is seen as nothing more than a simple casualty of war.

He wonders if this should bother him, how at ease he is with murdering a fellow human being. He wonders if he is a monster. He shrugs off these concerns easily enough, afterall at this point in his life he has spent far more time in Fae company than human. The Fae are a warrior race, and even Wren, who was often considered weak for his distaste for fighting, would feel no pain over this course of action. It is not murder; it is survival.

The time comes two days later. He uses his powers to jump into the fray of battle, a loaded gun already in his hands and pointed in the right direction. He spares mere seconds to pull the trigger, to watch his target fall to the ground and another man throw himself to the ground after him, and then he is gone. 

He jumps away from the battle, and opens the briefcase. 

Back in the relative safety of The Commission, Five hides a smile. The latest jump had given him even more data to consider for his equations.

Time passes slowly at The Commission, at least when compared to his days after the end of the world. It’s the company, he finds, or rather the lack of. Even when he was surviving off of roaches, and scraps, he’d had Wren, another clever mind to entertain himself with. Here, there is no one.

The years pass, like the slow dripping of molasses, and Five wishes for something, anything, to change. His equations haunt him even as they slowly come together. As he travels through time, killing the men and women he is told to, he collects data, information on how the briefcases work, on how the temporal travel has different feelings when one was arriving in a new time, and leaving it after a change. 

He calculates nearly constantly, until one day he finds himself ready.

When that time comes, he is sure not to allow for any change in behavior. He pretends to still be enamoured in his work, to continue working towards his final understanding of time travel. When he is given an assignment, he packs his workbook and pen with the same reverence he always does. Afterall, he is being watched. 

“We really are pleased with your work,” The Handler purrs. “That’s why we’ve decided to gift you with such a high profile case: JFK. He’s all yours now, Five. Don’t fail me.”

“I haven’t yet,” Five reminds her, a ritual of sorts at this point. 

“No,” She replies. “You haven’t yet.”

Five maintains appearances until the very end, he works in his book as he hears the Kennedy procession approaching, a rifle resting besides him. He has to act as he always would, he reminds himself, or all will be lost. 

He waits until the exact moment he is supposed to pull the trigger, and then he tears a hole in the fabric of time and steps through.

There’s resistance, he finds. He’s never experienced anything like this before, disregarding his failed attempts to return to his family directly after he reached the apocalypse, and that of course had not been resistance so much as complete and utter failure. 

He is stuck in the blue light of his powers, moving forwards, or is it backwards ever so slowly. He is both moving and not, and he wonders if travelling backwards through time is always like this, or is he made a mistake somewhere.

Something red flies past his ear. A fire extinguisher.

“What the fuck?” He mutters, but is quickly distracted. 

He can see them. God help him, he can see them. They look exactly as they did the day he buried them, and Five reaches out to them, fighting the restraints of the blue light that has always been a gentle guide for his past travels. Now it fights him, restrains him. He tears at it, and makes one final, desperate reach outwards. 

He screams.

The ground is hard, but he doesn’t find hitting it as hard as he does. Doing so means that he is free, that he made it back in time.

He smiles.

His siblings approach, confusion apparent in their eyes. He isn’t shocked, not really, after all if a man in his fifties had fallen out of the sky in front of him, Five probably would have killed him already. 

“Does anyone else see little Number Five, or is that just me?” Klaus wonders, and Five’s brows furrow. 

How could Klaus possibly recognize him in his Commission suit, and a body decades older than even his now aged siblings? Five looks down, trying to see what gave him away, and he finds his suit is too big for his body, now slight and young. His hands lack the wrinkles of age and the hard calluses of survival. 

His body is his, but it is a stranger’s as well. 

“Shit.”

He does not have time for this. He cannot focus on this. Instead, he allows his family to usher him inside, their protective instincts working in his favor at the moment. He guides them towards the kitchen, setting to work creating a sandwich, and ignoring how novel the notion of creating his own meal from real food is. Even in The Commission his food had been rationed, given to him at the behest of The Handler. 

“What’s the date? The exact date?” 

“The Twenty-fourth,” Number Sev-, no Vanya, replies.

“Of what?”

“March.”

“Good.”

“Are we gonna talk about what just happened?” Luther asks.

Five twitches, but does not respond. He isn’t sure how much he should share with his family. For all that he loves them, and wishes for their survival, he isn’t sure he trusts them. He doesn’t know what to share, nor how much, and he wished desperately that Wren were here. He needs to make his escape from his siblings, find solitude, and call the Fae’s true name.

“It’s been seventeen years!” Luther yells, shoving away from the table and rising to his feet. 

Five takes the defensive instantly, with the exception of Wren, every individual he’s met since he jumped has been a threat, and years of conditioning can not be overwritten by something so simple as love. Luther is a changed man, especially considering how he tries to hide his new body beneath layer after layer.

Five has been called many things. Trusting, is not one of them. 

“It’s been a lot longer than that.” He scoffs. Five continues with his sandwich, telling them a rough outline of his life since he left. He leaves out the important things, like Wren, and the Commission, distracting them with compliments, and a purposefully scientific explanation about why he looks the same age. None of his siblings ever were to bright.

“How does that even work?” Vanya asks, and Five shrugs. 

“Wren warned me the time-travel is more than just equations. Bet he’ll laugh at this”

“Wren?” Vanya asks.

Five changes the subject, drawing his sibling’s attention back to the death of their father, before making his escape to what was once his room. 

In his room, he finds nothing besides a variety of Umbrella Academy uniforms, and he dons one with a grimace. Wren will certainly laugh, he thinks. 

After his siblings scatter their father’s ashes, Five searches the house for coffee. He needs the caffeine, is desperate to avoid sleep, and the haunting dreams that come with it, not to mention his plans to sneak out of the house and get Wren when his family finally settles in for the night. 

There is no coffee, and Five cannot stand to stay in this house, which once was, and hopefully will never be the grave of his siblings. The coffee is an excuse. He takes the car and goes. 

Five finds himself at Griddy’s, and he does not know if he loves or hates it. He has so many memories here, of sneaking out both alone and with his siblings. Unlike many other places, there are no later, horrific memories overlaying the once good ones here. Griddy’s had been utterly decimated in the apocalypse. In some ways, this is worse.

He orders a coffee, black. He knows he looks strange, a teenage boy sitting alone and drinking coffee, so he makes casual conversation with the man beside him, a truck driver. Looking at his outfit, Five begins to plan.

“You must know your way around the city,” Five comments, and upon hearing the man’s affirmative, he continues. “I need an address.”

The driver leaves, and Five watches the waitress make her way into the back room. She’s lucky, he thinks as he hears the door behind him creak open.

“I thought I’d have more time.” He did too, otherwise he’d have called for Wren now, for all that his Fae is supposedly tame for a Fae, he’s been just as good, if not better, in a fight as the majority of his kind. Preferring not to fight had done nothing to dull the talents of his brother.

Still, he cannot summon Wren now. He had already been told that hearing one’s true name spoken is disorienting, and that it would take him several moments to recover himself upon arrival. He can not afford to bring Wren into a fight in that state.

The man behind him drones on, reluctant to kill a child. He mentions not wanting to go home with that on his conscious, and Five laughs. Laughter before a fight is a Fae tactic, meant to convey to your opponent that you know you will win, and are kind enough to give them one last chance to retreat. To do so would be a great shame of course, but the option is there.

Slowly, Five grabs a butterknife, and he jumps.


	3. Chapter Two

It’s simple enough, to appear behind enemy after enemy, stabbing and slicing. He manipulates them well, and watches as they shoot one another in an attempt to hit him. It’s a pity really, how easy it is to decimate this team, he expected better. 

He snaps the neck of the leader, before digging his tracker out his arm with the same knife he had killed the men with.

He wants Wren. He wants him in the same way that a wounded animal seeks shelter, and a child wants to be loved. At the moment, he is both of those things. Still, he grits his teeth and moves on. He cannot afford to call upon Wren right now. He’s injured. He won’t be able to protect the two of them, not after how many jumps he used while fighting the team The Commission sent. Silently, Five curses himself. He should have conserved energy. He should have planned better, and remembered the he’ll be responsible for Wren’s safety as his brother recovers from the calling of his true name. Wren had warned him that each Fae reacted differently, and his disorientation could last anywhere from mere seconds to an hour. 

He goes to Vanya. If anyone can understand him, can understand the workings of his mind, it's the woman who was brave enough to reveal all of their family’s secrets to the whole world. It makes her honest, and, like any Fae, Five has a deep appreciation for honesty. 

He wonders what she will make of the truth that he tells her.

It’s when she asks him if he’s sure it really happened, if time travel had broken his mind like their father had once suggested, that he realizes how stubbornly  _ human  _ Vanya is, all of them are. He himself has never felt less human, less connected to the ways of the world. 

Wren had never been good with humanity either, and perhaps that was part of the reason Five’s mind works like that of a Fae. Spend as much time as he did with another species, and them only, and you’re bound to lose a bit of what makes you human.

It hadn’t mattered with The Commission, not really. Everyone there had acted inhumanely, had listened to the rules of logic rather than emotion. In fact, Five, with his quest to save his family, had probably been the most sentimental of them all. Only, his poor social skills had his as much.

Five sneaks out of Vanya’s home that night. He cannot stay where he is unwelcome, and unwelcome he is. Vanya does not want him, she wants the Five who has long since ceased to exist. He cannot be that boy.

He finds himself standing outside of the company which manufactured the eye he’d found in Luther’s hand; and he works himself up to entering the building. When he finally does, he quickly seeks out a doctor and inquires about the eye. 

“Where did you get that?”

Five shrugs, before replying, “I found it near my house, must’ve popped out. I want to reconnect it with its original owner.”

The doctor refuses on account of confidential records, and Five feels anger bubbling low in his guts. 

“I can return it to its owner for you,” The doctor offers, and Five hisses in response.

“You aren’t touching it!”

“Now, listen here young man-” 

“You listen to me, asshole. I've come a long way for this, through some shit your pea brain couldn't even comprehend, so just give me the information I need, and I'll be on my merry way and if you call me ‘young man’ one more time, I'm gonna put your head through that damn wall.”

Security is called, and Five makes his way home. He misses Wren, and debates summoning him, and utilizing his skills in order to obtain the information he needs, but guilt holds him back. His brother has mentioned before how the one thing he enjoyed about the apocalypse was how he needn’t fight constantly, to bring him back would be to force him into a war he doesn’t want. 

Besides, as clever as Wren is, he wouldn’t be able to lie, and what Five needs right now is an accomplished liar. Who better than his brother who has survived on the streets. 

Klaus agrees to assist him easily enough, and Five quickly dresses him in their father’s old suit. He ignores the backstory Klaus is building; nothing matters outside of reaching his goal at the moment.

He shuffles Klaus inside the door of the company with a falsely innocent smile, telling the guards that he wishes to apologize for his earlier behavior. They believe him, because why else would a child make an appearance there, and this time he’s even brought his father.

The doctor still won’t give them the information. Five can feel the blood rushing to his head, can hear it roaring in his ears; the urge to jump forwards and tear out the man’s throat with his teeth is strong. He wants to see if that changes his mind about the importance of patient consent. 

“What about my consent?” He hears Klaus ask, but he’s too busy fantasizing about the variety of ways he could kill the doctor to truly pay attention. “Who gave you permission to lay hands on my son?”

Before he knows it, he has a bloody lip, and the stinging imprint of his brother’s hand across his cheek. He laughs, slow and steady at that, not stopping even as Klaus slams a snow globe into his own head and gives the doctor an ultimatum.

“The eye, it hasn’t been purchased by a client yet.”

“ What? What do you mean?”

The eye, he learns, has yet to be manufactured. It doesn’t even exist yet, and he has no leads. Who knows if he can stop the apocalypse now.

“It doesn’t matter,” Five whispers, sitting dejected, besides Klaus, on the steps. “It didn’t matter.”

“What’s the big deal with this eye anyway?” Klaus wonders.

“There is someone out there who is going to lose an eye in the next seven days, and they’re going to bring about the end of life as we know it.”

Klaus, Kluas doesn’t care. All he wants is his twenty-dollars, and food, and Five has never felt so lonely and out of place. He wants to grab Klaus by the shoulders, to shake him and scream that if they don’t stop the apocalypse none of that will even exist anymore, none of them will.

“You need to lighten up, old man.”

He will not hurt his brother, he reminds himself. To do so would be wrong, and bad, and go against everything he’s working to do here in the past (future? present?).

Klaus laughs, “I know why you’re so uptight, all those years alone, you must be horny as hell!”

“I wasn’t alone,” Five mutter before he can stop himself. He knows this isn’t what Klaus meant, knew that the man was thinking romantically, or sexually, but Five had long since accepted that familial relations were the extent of it for him. 

“Oh? Pray tell.”

“I had a… friend.” He does not say brother, he isn’t sure he’s ready to deal with the fallout of explaining that he’s known Wren longer than he ever knew the Umbrella Academy. “We knew each other for forty some odd years.”

“Oh, wow!” Klaus exclaims. “My longest-lasting friendship is Ben, but he has no choice but to stay with me.”

Five is gone before Kalus has completed the thought.

He’s waited for too long. He should have called for Wren as soon as he was safe enough to do so. His fear that something’s changes, that their five years apart will have changed something is ridiculous. Wren and him have been to hell and back together, the time Five spent among the Commission is nothing in comparison.

He returns to the department store he’s been in the first time Wren saved his life, the first time Wren had explained that he isn’t human. 

_ “All I’m saying, Five, is that there is more to the world than science can explain. Look at you for example, you can jump through time and space on a whim!” _

_ Five wrinkles his nose, digging through the pile of clothing before him, and looking for something to ward off the relentless rain. “Well, yes, but there’s science and math supporting each jump.” _

_ “Your damn calculations don’t actually mean anything,” Wren snorts, “ Besides, does science explain why you can- Look out!” _

_ There’s a gust of wind suddenly, one strong enough, and targeted enough to pick Five up, and throw him back. He manages to keep his eyes open though, and he sees as well as Wren, the chunk of cement that falls from the ruined ceiling and lands right where he’d once been standing. _

_ Five studies him, “You never explained your powers. Are you one of the forty-three?” _

_ “No,” Wren snorts. “I’m Fae.” _

  
  


He jumps inside the store, and beelines his way over to the same spot in which he almost dies. There, he allows himself to fall to his knees, and call Wren’s true name:

Like all Fae, his name is difficult for the human tongue to replicate, a series of whistles and clicks, and howls, that Five only remembers due to the magic Wren had imbued it with.

  
  


A portal appears, this one unlike any that Five has ever created for himself, rather than a blue glow, it is as dark as night. No light comes through, and it seems more like a void than anything else. A pale hand pokes through, and Wren rises to his feet, grasping it, and pulling the rest of the Fae through.

Wren is gaunt, and pale, and nothing like Five had left him. He can’t understand, Wren had promised him that he would travel back mere moments after his own departure, and yet his body shows the signs of weeks, if not days, of hard living.

He’s only just slung one of Wren’s arms over his shoulder, when a shot rings out. 

Once the shooting begins, there is no break from it. Five drops to the ground, pulling Wren with him, and begins crawling away. Wren makes no move to follow, not even as Five tugs at his arms.

Wren stares up at him, “You have to leave me.”

“I’ll be right back,” He promises, before jumping to the other side of the store.

The gunshots follow him, and he can hear his attackers speaking amongst themselves, commenting on his abilities. He ignores them, looking around for the nearest weapon. All he finds is a piece of a clothing rack, but he curls his fingers around it nonetheless, and he jumps once more.

He finds himself behind the woman, and he swings his makeshift weapon wildly, smiling at the spew of blood, before jumping back to his previous position and running back to Wren. He grabs Wren once more, and portals them farther into the store, but away from the spray of bullets. It’s only a matter of time before he is found.

Bullets are hitting at his feet, and he attempts another portal, only to find he is unable. It’s not too much of a shock, he’d long since discovered that portaling a Fae takes far more energy than reasonable, unless the Fae lent power, but it’s an unpleasant moment nonetheless.

He’s saved by the scream of police sirens, and as his attackers glance away, he drags Wren behind an overturned table, and waits, Wren’s head nestled in his lap. The Commission Assassins will leave, they can’t afford to be caught. 

Softly, Wren smiles. “You did good, kid.”

Five laughs, and then he cries. He bawls like he hasn’t in years, decades even. He’s alive. His siblings are alive. Wren is alive. Now, he just needs to save them all.

“We need to go,” He says through his tears. He can hear the police cars parking, the men preparing to charge into the room.

“Can’t yet,” Wren tells him. “To weak. You lie, I’ll follow along.”

“Are you strong enough to appear human?” Five’s eyes linger on Wren’s pointed teeth and silver eyes.

Wren shakes his head.

The police barge in, screaming at them to put their hands up. Five obeys, though not without a grimace. 

The officers train guns on him and Wren, yelling details into the radios, and Five glares at them defiantly, wondering how he’ll stop them from separating him. He’s wondering if he’ll have to play the role of a minor, when the cop in front of him drops to his knees.

“Hey, kid. Are you and your friend alright?”

“I’m fine.” Five lies. “I don’t know about Wren.”

“Sir,” the officer begins, addressing Wren. “Sir, can you speak?”

Five quickly shakes his head, knowing that they’ll expect Wren to take the lead as the so called adult if he can. “He doesn’t speak English, only Archi.”

“Archi?”

“It’s a rare language spoken in the Archi region of Russia?”

Wren looks at him, eyes narrowed, and whispers in his own native language, “Really, Five?”

“Yes,” Five replies, in the same language, grateful that he had so long to learn it. “You’ll have to forgive my mistakes though. I haven’t practiced in years.”

“I can tell.”

The officer coughs gently, “You can speak with him then?”

“Oh, yes.” Five answers. “I’m nearly fluent.”

“Is he capable of walking?”

Five returns to Fae, “Are you?”

Wren pauses, assessing. “Yes. I have almost regained full strength as well, though I suppose changing my appearance now would be more suspicious.”

Five snorts in agreement, and allows the officer to direct the two of them to the back of an ambulance. He scowls the whole time, wishing that Wren had been well enough for them to escape before being sighted. No doubt, they were going to be asked questions he had no answers to soon. 

A paramedic is stitching Five’s arm up, and Wren finally allows himself to take in his companions appearance. 

“I thought that humans were unable to alter their appearances.” 

“We are.”

“But you’re a child once more, like the day that I found you.”

“An unintended consequence of time travel,” Five scowls. “My finals equations were off.”

“I warned you!” Wren Crows, “Time travel is more than just science, and math. It’s magic, and the will of the Earth.”

“Where are my witnesses?” A woman’s voice rings out across the department store parking lot, and Five gives a heavy sigh.

“Just follow my lead,” He tells Wren. “We need them to think you don’t know what’s going on.”

“Easy enough,” Wren smirks, “Given that I don’t.”

“I’ll tell you later.”

A woman approaches, and introduces herself as Detective Eudora Patch.

“Hi there,” She greets, squatting down in front of him as though he were a kid. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Don’t treat me like a child.” Five orders, rolling his eyes. “I’m Aidan Khigani, and this is my cousin, Wren.”

He avoids using his real name, knowing it will garner far too much attention.

Patch rises, standing before him normally. “Okay then, Aidan. Can you and your cousin tell me what occurred here?”

“We were walking down the street, I couldn’t sleep, you see, when we saw these people carrying guns and wearing these crazy masks, like stuffed animal heads. I was scared, so Wren and I ran in here. They saw us though, and followed us into the store, where they started shooting.”

“And you have no idea what they were there for originally?”

“No,” Five lies. “None.”

“Have you ever met a man named Syd Furrow, he was a driver for Ishmael’s towing?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Can you ask your cousin for me?”

Five turns to Wren, “I don’t actually know what she’s talking about anymore.”

“Nor do I.”

“Eudora,” A voice shouts, and Five can’t help but feel that it should mean something to him. He follows the direction it came from, and finds himself looking at Diego.

“We need to go,” Five hisses.”

Wren leaps to his feet, looking for danger, “Have they returned?”

“Worse, it’s my brother.”

Wren laughs in delight. “Then why flee, come, I wish to meet him. Which is it? The strong one, the weapon user, the seance man?”

“Diego, the knife one,” Five replies. “But you can’t meet here, he’ll recognize me, and blow our entire story that we’ve already given the police.”

“It’s too late,” Wren tells him. “The detective is already bringing him over, unless you jump and leave me, he’ll know.”

Five opens his mouth, “I can-”

“Five? Is that you?” Diego turns to Patch, “I thought you said this kid was a potential lead on the guy at the donut shop?”

“He is.” She replies, “He could be the kid from Griddy’s placing him at two out of three crime scenes.”

“Five isn’t any tow truck driver’s kid, he’s my brother.”

Patch’s eyebrows raise, “How is that possible, I thought you were all the same age?”

“It’s a long story,” Five interrupts, “Can we go now?”

“No!” Patch answers. “Explain why you gave me a false name, as well as who this man is, because I know Diego has no cousins.”

“Long story short, I time-traveled to the future, now I’m here, Wren is someone I met on my journey. I gave you a fake name, because no one would believe I’m actually Five Hargreeves who’s been missing for seventeen years, but looks thirteen.”

“That’s impossible.” Eudora objects.

“It isn’t,” Diego tells her. “He’s telling the truth.”

Wren rolls his eyes, looking to Five. “Can we go now? I grow bored of these ridiculous human customs.”

“Get used to them,” Five sighs. “We’ll both be trapped by them for the rest of our lives.”

“What language is that?” Diego asks, “You couldn’t speak any other languages when you disappeared.”

“One you needn’t worry about.” Five tells him. “You’re looking at the last two men alive who speak it.”

“We’ll come back to that.” Patch interjects. “How can I trust the statement that you gave me earlier?”

“Most of it is true,” Five informs her. “I really only lied about my relation to Wren. He isn’t my cousin, though he is family to me, and I wasn’t walking with him, I met him here, and then the shooters appeared. Is that all?”

“No,” Patch objects, “I have more questions.”

Wren rolls his eyes, “Go, I will meet you where we buried your kin.”

Five nods once, then he jumps, leaving them all behind.


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting, its finals week and I take a lot of hours.

Wren finds himself alone amongst humans, a feeling he was not sure he’d ever experience again. He can tell already that these mortals are not like Five, that despite their passion, and dedication to the mystery Five has created, they would fail to meet Fae standards. 

He wonders what they would do if he were to bare his fangs at them now, if he allowed his molten silver eyes to flare bright, encompassing the reflection of the sun, as their moon does every night. He wonders how quickly they would piss themselves if he were to expose them to the inherent violence of his people, if he were to hunt in front of them, bringing down an animal with nothing more than his hands and teeth.

“Damn it,” Patch mutters, running her hand through her hair. “I don’t even know what language I need to get a translator for.”

Diego turns to face him, making a face as he watches Wren toe off the shoes the paramedics had provided him, “You don’t speak any English?”

Wren hesitates. He knows what Five wants of him; he is not obligated to answer, only to tell the truth is he decides to. He could maintain his brother’s charade, stay silent, but this is Five’s family, someone he loves, and Wren will not be the reason for their separation. His mortal will have such a short life with his siblings, even if it will be longer than most mortals, and he does not wish to make their time together difficult through lies. He scowls, he never had dilemmas like this prior to Five. He would simply act as he wished and fight his way out of problems as all Fae do. 

“Not according to your brother,” Patch informs him.

Diego studies him, doubtlessly curious about his origins.

“I buried you,” Wren informs him. “Five had already buried Number Three when I arrived, but his hands were cracked and bleeding, and he was alone, so I dug your grave for him. I laid you to rest.”

Both Patch and Diego fall silent at that, unsure of how to respond, but Wren simply shakes out his long silver hair, and begins to walk away.

“Wait,” Patch argues. “You can’t go yet, we-”

Wren ignores the rest, transferring into a gentle, loping run, fueled by the rush of wind behind him, propelling him. He has better things to do in this new timeline.

He finds the academy easily, though he must confess that it looks quite different now, with all of the buildings standing, and the lack of graves.

He is standing in front of the mansion when he hears voices around the side. A man’s voice, lilting and fun. It holds the playfulness of a young fae, but not the promise of bloodshed.

“Hey! You know there are easier ways out of the house, buddy?”

“This one involved the least amount of talking,” Five replies, and Wren begins to make his way over to them. It seems he is right on time. “Or so I thought.”

“Hey, hey, hey… so.” The other voice says, and Wren can now see that it is attached to yet another one of the bodies he helped Five bury, a brother. “You need anymore company today?”

“A good question,” Wren tells the unknown sibling, as his hand clasps down on Five’s shoulder.

Five’s elbow instantly comes lashing backwards, aiming for his crotch, but Wren catches it before it can connect. 

“Rude.”

“Don’t sneak up on me,” Five tell him.

Wren simply shrugs. “Pay better attention.”

“Wait a minute,” the man says, attempting to climb out of the dumpster, and failing. “Does he get to go with you?”

“Yes,” Five answers, looking to Wren. “Lets go.”

“That’s not fair!”

“I’m done funding your drug habit Klaus!”

Wren follows Five to a van, and scowls as he climbs into the passenger seat. “Must we take this?’

“You’re more than welcome to walk, oh wait, you don’t know where we’re going.”

Wren grumbles some more, before settling in for the ride. He hates cars, hates all forms of transportation that don’t rely on his own two feet. If he wasn’t sure that he’d get lost, he’d simply wind walk there, it would be just as fast.

“Why are we watching some medical building?’ Wren complains, shifting in his seat. He’s always been one for direct action, unless of course there was some form of trick to be played. Here though, he doesn’t understand the game Five is playing, and he’s growing impatient.

They’ve been there for hours when Five’s scent sours, and his eyes go wide. Wren hisses, recognizing the signs, and he leans across the counsel in order to gently shake Five awake from his haunting daydreams.

“Are they back?” Wren asks him, “They were gone last we spoke.”

“My time at the commission started them again,” Five confesses. “Though they aren’t as bad as before.”

A sudden knock at the door shocks them both, distracted as they were by Five’s trauma. Snarling, Wren turns towards his window, only to recognize the last of Five’s brothers.

“Who are you,” Luther asks, taking in Wren’s inhuman features. 

He doesn’t say anything, and Wren has a feeling he never will. He recalls the grotesque figure hidden beneath the man’s clothes, and he can guess from Five’s insistence that he hadn’t always been like that, that it would be a sensitive subject. He wonders if this will gain him the man’s approval.

“How did you find me?” Five demands, and Luther draws their attention to the back of the vehicle, where Klaus is sprawled out.

“When did you get there?” Wren wonders. “I didn’t smell you.”

“Well that’s alarming,” Klaus replies, but Wren notices that he never quite answers the question. He smiles at that, a good Fae always appreciates evading the truth.

“Get out,” Five seethes. “We’re in the middle of something!”

“Any luck finding your one eyed man?” Klaus questions, and Wren waits for Five’s response, unsure if they will be telling the truth or not.

Five shakes his head and Luther asks what they’re talking about, which Wren watches Five evade in delight. He wonders if all mortal families are so wonderfully dysfunctional.

“Anyway,” Luther continues. “Grace may have had something to do with Dad’s death. I need you to come back to the academy, it’s important.”

“You have no concept of what’s important,” Five scoffs.

Wren laughs, “Be nice to him, Five. He’s human, and not in the way that you are.”

Klaus interrupts with an anecdote about waxing his ass with chocolate pudding, and Wren watches in interest as Luther turns on him.

“What are you still doing here?”

“What are you?” Wren asks. He looks between the two of them, attempting to figure out why Luther thinks his words are more important than his brother’s.

“Don’t get involved in this,” Luther tells him. “Who even are you?”

Wren growls, not liking the other man’s threatening tone, but Five speaks on his behalf, before he’s driven to violence. For all that he was never considered aggressive enough among his people, he still jumps to violence far more quickly than the average human.

“Wren is my family, you have a problem with him, you bring it to me.”

“We’re your family,” Luther objects, and Five can only shrug.

Wren smiles, showing more fang than normal, “Well, the apocalypse binds people in a certain way life here wouldn’t.”

Five sighs, “Wren, can you at least pretend to respect human ways and behaviors?”

“Wait,” Klaus mumbles, “You aren’t human?”

“No,” Wren snorts. “Obviously not. Now, get out. We only have six days left.”

Klaus obeys quickly, perhaps sensing the aura of danger that was befalling Wren, but Luther simply crosses his arms.

“Six days till what?”

“You’ll find out soon enough if you stick around,” Five informs him.

Luther shakes his head. “Whatever, Five. I hope you’re happy prioritizing this creature above your family.”

“You’re a fool,” Wren informs him. “To think Five is anything but loyal to you.”

Luthor leaves, but the sting of his words remain.

“Don’t they realize,” Five snarls, “Don’t they see everything I’ve done for them. I didn’t have to come back. I didn’t have to join the Commission for them. I would have been content to remain in the apocalypse with you.”

“They are young,” Wren answers, “And they are fools, much like when you first came to me. Do you not remember how the ghost of your family haunted your every move before you surrendered yourself to the way of the Fae?”

“Maybe, but youthful ignorance does not excuse turning on those loyal to you. It’s as if they’ve never heard of loyalty, for all that I know it exists among humans.”

Wren watches him carefully, as though trying to see what exactly his brother has been through in the past five years. Despite how his appearance has regressed, Wren can see the weariness that haunts him, and the way he holds himself as though expecting a fight. He knows that the Commision has changed his brother, but not exactly how. It is the first time in decades that he does not know everything about Five.

It scares him.

“Did you trust me, when we first met?” Wren asks, then, without waiting for an answer he plows on. “No, but do you trust me now? Your siblings do not know you, they think of you as weak, as the same thirteen year old boy that they had lost. You must prove to them that you are more than this, that you are Fae.”

“And if that scares them away?”

“Then they shall have me to contend with.”

Silence falls once more, and they go back to watching Meritech, only this time Wren allows himself to fall into a deep meditation, sending his powers out in search of clues he would miss otherwise. To do so is a dangerous risk, but he trusts Five to watch his back. Even in the apocalypse his brother had been capable, and now the training from the Commission makes him even more qualified.

Like this, it is easier to commune with the elements, and Wren settles in to listen. He commands them to only bother him with what they believe to be of importance, but important to a humanoid and a force of nature are undeniably different. As such, Wren sits through Fire’s roars of campers and stoves, searching for deeper meaning or the burning of flesh rather than wood. The Water burbles at him, and Wren dismisses the laughter of children playing and the stink of pollution. He nearly dismisses all of the Water’s work, especially as it focuses on a man in a bath, until it speaks of the people in masks ripping him from the safety of the water and taking him away. Earth follows his change in attention, and tells Wren of tires against pavement, and the direction in which their vehicles take, it tells him when they stop, and where. 

It is Air that confirms what he has feared, that it is related to their cause: the name of the man taken against his will is Klaus, and Air carries his screams to Wren.

Quickly, Wren removes himself from the embrace of the elements and looks to his brother. “We cannot remain here, waiting for a clue that may never come. The Commission has targeted your family.”

Five curses, running a hand through his hair. “Shit, what happened?”

“I didn’t get details, but they’ve taken Klaus. No doubt they think he has knowledge about your actions; we should rescue him sooner rather than later. If we act quick enough, it's unlikely that he’ll have told them about me, and we will have the element of surprise.”

“Did you get the names of his attackers?” Five asks, eyes hard and calculating.

“Only that they are the same two who were after us in the warehouse.”

Five snarls, and rage sparks in his eyes. Wren watches him carefully, thinking of how he himself might react if someone had tried to kill not one, but two of his loved ones. He does not allow his mind to drift back to his beloved, broken as he had last seen him, instead he focuses on Five and Klaus, those who still live. He barely notices when he begins to think of Klaus as the prize of a hunt, rather than a man in need of a rescue.

“Where?” Five asks, and Wren tells him.

The grin that splits his face as Five jumps away is absolutely feral, and as Wren wind-walks to the hotel he dreams of blood, and death, and victory like he has not since the days of his people. He yearns for the vicious days the Fae once reveled in, and he is ready for the chance to release the feral instinct that has been building within. 

The commission does not know it, but they have sealed their fates. With every step Wren takes, they are closer and closer to their end. The customs of the Fae demand it, and as the last, Wren must follow through.

Smiling with teeth sharper than daggers, Wren looks up at the hotel before him and licks his lips.


	5. Chapter Four

Five is prowling the halls of the hotel, searching to find which room his brother is being held in, when Wren appears. He looks ethereal in nature, and Five knows that his Fae characteristics have risen to the top. Wren’s eyes burn molten silver, and his face is sharper, and more angular. This can mean only one thing, the night will end in blood. 

He’s glad, and he sends Wren a wicked grin of his own. The commission has touched what’s his, and now they must pay. It is the way of the Fae.

On any given day Fae are unnaturally beautiful, despite how other worldly they look, but when they embark on the Wild Hunt they are nearly unrecognizable. This is more apparent than ever as Five watches his brother prowl from door to door, stopping at each and trailing one clawed nail in complex patterns over the numbers.

It’s not that Wren is any less beautiful, but rather that he’s much more frightening. Despite how well Five knows him, every bone in his body screams at him to flee, to get as far away as he can. He has not quite gotten lighter or darker in color, but, more accurately, he has lost a layer or his corporeal form and he appears as thought he could disappear into the mist at any given moment. The wind whips around him, and yet neither his hair nor clothes twitch at all.

Five has never seen a Wild Hunt before. In the apocalypse there was no reason to summon the force, there had been no hunting left to do, and Wren had not joined him at the commission. Still, Wren has told him much about them, and he knows that Klaus will be found shortly. The Fae always get what they want in the end, and before the destruction of his people, Wren had been about to inherit the title of Khigani, and lead his clan in the Wild Hunt.

The Hunt is rare and long though, and Five wonders what exactly Wren is up to. It’s doubtful that finding Klaus will satisfy his need to hunt, even if Five were to stand back and watch Wren kill them all himself. He won’t do that of course, as Klaus is his brother and it is his right to take revenge. If not for the kidnapping of his brother than simply because the Commission wants him dead, and he needs them dealt with, at least for now. 

“Here,” Wren informs him, and his voice is low and husky. “Klaus is in here.”

As Wren’s hand comes down on the door knob, Five jumps inside of the room. He knows his brother will be in the room in a second, likely before Hazel and Cha-Cha even notice his presence, and he scans the room. 

Klaus is tied to a chair in the center of the room, while Hazel and Cha-Cha are seated on the beds behind him looking defeated. He wonders briefly what Klaus had said to put that expression on their faces, but then the door opens for Wren, and the room leaps into action. 

Hazel and Cha-Cha rose to their feet, reaching for their weapons, but Five jumps behind Cha-Cha before her fingers close around the gun. He would like nothing more than to draw this out, to make her suffer for touching what is his, but he knows better than that. Instead, he tamps down on his Fae-like desires and allows the training of the Commission to take over. 

His hands find their way to the sides of her head, and he moves as though to snap her neck. Besides him, he hears Hazel screaming, reaching for his gun as well as Klaus’ muffled shouts. He doesn’t worry, knows that Wren will take care of Hazel, but he still moves just a smidge to slow. Cha-Cha throws herself forwards, out of his hands and away from her death. 

Five jumps forwards again, landing on her chest as she rolled over to face face him. Neither of them are armed, but that does not mean the fight will be anything but violent. Cha-Cha strikes out before he can pin both her arms, and her palm catches him across the mouth. He can taste the copper of pooling blood, and he spits it into her face even as he looks for a weak spot. 

He can’t snap her neck like he’d planned, not from this position, but he has to take action somehow before she frees herself from his grasp. Sighing, he releases on of her arms, before quickly pinning it back to the ground with his foot. With his free hand, he grasps Cha-Cha by the hair, and forces her head up toward him. 

When he slams it back down, it’s with enough force to knock her out. He doesn’t stop there though. Despite the fragility of his younger body, Five keeps going until he sees her skull split open and knows she is no more. 

When he looks up at Klaus, he’s shocked to see that his brother isn’t looking at him. Instead, Klaus’ attention is locked onto Wren, and his eyes are wide and filled with tears. As he looks, Klaus begins to shake, shrinking back away from the two of them. Five follows his line of sight, confused by how visceral Klaus’ reaction is.

Wren is not human. That is more clear in this moment than in any before. It doesn’t bother Five, it never has, but it could explain some of his brother’s fear. After all, Wren is bathed in the blood of Hazel, and the blood seems to shine, illuminated by the faint glow of those ever silver eyes. His teeth, always pointed, seem longer, sharper, and the wind and mist of the hunt are wrapped tightly about him. Briefly Five wonders if perhaps he’s missing something, if he’s desensitized after spending so long with Wren, because he cannot fathom how this would have caused such a reaction within Klaus. As unnatural as it may seem, they had seen stranger as children, and if it were a reaction to the gore, that statement still remains true. 

When Ben had been alive, the horror had killed violently and indiscriminately. The amount of blood covering Wren was about equal to that which Ben had usually ended a mission in, though Five could admit that Ben had certainly taken less pride in it. The satisfaction in Wren’s eyes is not that of a sane man, at least not among the average human. For Fae. it is a sign of pride in a job well done.

Five looks down at Wren’s feet, to the corpse that had once been Hazel. If he had not seen the man before, he would have no way of recognizing him. Even if one were to ignore the mess Wren had made of his face, his clothes were far to blood soaked to associate with how he had looked earlier. Of course, Hazel’s face was impossible to ignore what with the damage Wren has done to it. The man’s eyes were gone, gouged in or pulled out he couldn’t tell, and one of his ears was missing. Long, deep scratch marks covered his face, and in one spot had actually ripped through the check. The man’s throat had been torn out as well, and Five thinks he can detect the faint indents of teeth.

“It’s okay,” Five tells him, giving his best attempt at being soothing. He can’t be sure how well he’s doing, can't remember the last time he received comfort from an actual human. “Wren won’t hurt us.”

“There’s so many,” Klaus mutters, still locked onto Wren. 

Wren is not paying attention, instead wiping his face off with the clean sheets on the bed farthest from the cooling body of his target. Five knows he doesn’t particularly care, but, after the first few times Five had complained when Wren had showed up filthy and frightening, he had opted to make an effort to appear more human for Five’s own sake.

“So many?” Five asks, prompting Klaus even as he falls down to his knees and sets to work untying him.

Klaus shivers. “There’s so many. The ghosts, they’re surrounding him. Some humans, so many not. They’re reaching for him. So many blame him, but the others. The others want him to be their vengeance. They want us gone.”

“They aren’t there Klaus,” Five tells him, undoing the last of his ties. “They can’t touch you.”

Klaus screams suddenly, falling off of the chair and scrambling backwards. “No, no.”

Wren, Five realizes, has finished his attempt to clean himself and began to approach them.

“Stop,” Five demands, but Klaus has already backed himself against the wall.

“All these Fae. So many, they follow him, the last of his kind, and they demand retribution. They say it was one of us.” Klaus suddenly makes eye contact with him, the terror deeper than before. “They think we killed them all.”

“They’re dead,” Five tries again. “Wren can’t even hear them, nothing bad will happen.”  
Before he can finish, Klaus begins to scream again. 

He watches in horror as Klaus falls to the side, crawling away from an unseen threat. He's too slow, realizes what’s about to happen to late. He jumps, but by the time he lands where Klaus had been, the other man’s hand had already come down on the lone briefcase left sitting on the ground.

Klaus is gone, sent spiraling aimlessly through time.

“He’s gone,” Five whispers. “We saved him, but he’s gone.”

“How?” Wren asks, still glowing with the power of the Wild Hunt.

“The briefcase, it was one from the Commission. He could be anywhere in time.” Suddenly, Five rips his eyes from the spot his brother had been in, staring at Wren. “You’re still in the Hunt. You could find him, bring him back.”

“I could,” Wren admits. “But I have nothing to tie me to your brother, and I do not know how long it would take me to find him. The power will not fade until I do, but if I follow him through time, I will not be able to use the Hunt to find the owner of the eye. We could lose our one chance to stop the apocalypse.”

Five bites his lip, looking back to where Klaus had once sat. Then, he shakes his head.

“Then it’s the apocalypse we focus on. I cannot sacrifice the many for the one. I cannot lose the rest of my family for him.”

“The apocalypse it is,” Wren agrees, and when Five hands him the eyeball, his eyes glow bright, brighter than ever before, and the world goes silver.


	6. Chapter 6

With Five’s agreement, Wren allows himself to tap into the full power of the Hunt. It’s overpowering, almost painful, and for the first time Wren knows why the Hunt is meant to be shared among the clan. The power of it overwhelms him, and he feels his knees buckling. The elements speak to him, this time all at once and without delay, and he struggles to take it all in.

The room around him has ceased to exist, replaced by a pure silver, the same silver that ran in the Pools of Rushant. Startled, Wren turns in a full circle, struggling to complete the movement. He does not know where he is. The hunt has always been fueled by The Silver, this is nothing new, but never before has he appeared within it. Doubtless it is connected to the destruction of his realm. For nearly half a century now, the Fae have been gone, and no one has been drawing upon The Silver. He should not be shocked by it’s abundance.

Still, the power pressing down upon him is nearly too much, and Wren soon finds himself on his knees. “No,” he hisses. “No! I am Fae, this is my right! The hunt is mine, and I shall continue it. I will find what caused this, I will avenge my people!”

He struggles to his feet, gathering The Silver in his hands as he does so. He begins to coat himself in it, drawing power from the environment around him, and slowly the voices of the elements die away. He does not need to hear them any longer, he knows them. He  _ is  _ them.

“Wren.” 

He turns.

“Beloved.” He gasps, his voice nearly stolen from him in shock. “My love.”

His betrothed, the same one who’s body he had held in his arms, who he had adorned in flowers and set out upon the Pools of Rushant, stood before him. He had hoped, as all Fae did, that his love would be accepted into the waters of the Silver, but he had not dared to dream that it had happened, that he would be so lucky as to encounter his betrothed again.

“How?”

“Wren,” his beloved says, cupping his cheek in one hand. Then he says his true name, imbued with the power of The Silver, and Wren feels a rush of power and ferocity like nothing before. He feels as though he could tear the realms apart, both Fae and mortal. “My dear. Look inside of yourself, the elements have spoken. You have the answers you seek. You must go though, leave The Silver, before it claims you too.”

“Why would I ever leave you?” Wren asks, covering the hand upon his cheek with his own. “Why can I not stay here with you, as I once swore I would?”

His love smiles sadly, and gently presses their foreheads together. “That time will come, but you have tied your life to another’s, formed a loyalty bond, and you must see it to the end.”

“Five would understand,” Wren tells his betrothed desperately. “He knows what I lost the day you died.”

“He would not understand, and eventually you would hate yourself for breaking your vow. It is not you that wishes to stay. It is the call of The Silver, the voices of those you have lost. We are many these days”

“Please.”

“Go, my love.”

Wren watches in despair as his betrothed steps away from him and disappears into The Silver as if he were never there. 

“I’ll be back.” He promises, “I will return to you.”

Then he closes his eyes, and focuses on Five. With the power of The Hunt flowing through him, it is easy to locate his brother, easier still to step from the Silver and rejoin him.

The Silver coats his whole body, from head to his still bare feet, and though he has never been so powerful in his life, he finds that he does not care in the least. He feels empty, cold and abandoned.

“Tell me the truth, Five.”

“Always,” Five promises, his face contorting in confusion.

Wren bares his teeth, “Did you know?”

“Know? Wren, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

_ Truth. Truth. _ The world whispers to him. He doesn’t know what it means. Five is all he has left. He doesn’t want to hurt him, but one way or another he will.

“Your sister. She’s the one who ended your world. She draws her power from the Fae Realm, from the very Silver I am using now.”

“Allison?”

“No, the other.”

“Vanya? She doesn’t even have powers!”

“She does; they come to her now, and if I discover she is the one responsible for the fate of my realm I shall rip them from her with my claws and teeth.”

“This isn’t possible.” Five mutters. “She never showed any sign of having abilities.”

“Your father suppressed them. He feared her. The Earth tells me that she was hidden within it for a long time, until the one with the words told her she was ordinary. Five, this does not concern me. I must hunt. I must find your sister.”

“You can’t kill her! Wren, please. Don’t kill her.”

Wren hisses. “And if it was her? If she is responsible for the deaths of my clan, my family, my betrothed? What then Five? Will you demand her life then? Or will you ask me to surrender my vengeance, the ways of my people? You are my family, and I love you, but I have known you a mere blink of an eye. My betrothal was twice as long as the years we have known one another. Would you have me let the killer of my people go, all because of a girl you don't even know?”

Five’s face is ashen, but Wren does not back down, he cannot. He understands Five’s loyalty to his sister, admires it even, but his own loyalties must come first. If this Vanya has led to the destruction of his realm, she must be destroyed. For his clan. For his family. For his betrothed.

“If it was her,” Five whsipers. “If it was her, I’ll help you kill her. But Wren, we must be certain. You have to tell me everything you know, why do you think that she’s responsible for the apocalypse.”

“I will tell you, and then we will hunt.”

“Then we hunt.”

In halting words, Wren explains the knowledge that flows through him. He tries to hurry, cognizant of the pull of the hunt, of the fact that he will not be free of it until the apocalypse has been averted, one way or another. He knows which way he would prefer, there is nothing more satisfying, no better way to soothe a hurt than to have the blood of the offender dripping from one’s claws, but he knows already that Five will do his best to avoid that fate.

The Silver is not confined by mortal time. It is of the Fae. The elements too are granted such distinction.

The earth had told him of Vanya’s youth, of the powers that frightened her father, of her confinement and Allison’s powerful persuasion that she was ordinary. The air had carried to him the power embedded within her music, how each note carried the force of destruction. Water spoke to him of cups of tea shared with a man named Leonard, of the loss of an eye, and of blood splattering on wooden flooring. 

Fire rages on about destruction. 

“So we don’t know about the Fae Realm.”

Wren snarls. “Is it not enough to know she will destroy your realm? Is it not enough to know that she draws her power from the sacred resources of my people? If she did not kill them why is she connected to my realm. She was not Fae favored. She bears no mark.”

“We have no proof.” Five argues. “We try to stop her from ending the world first,  _ without killing her _ , then we can look further into what happened to your people.”

“And if it was her? If by allowing her to live, she has gathered the power to defeat us?”

“We will deal with it if it comes to that. I promise, but you must promise me you will not kill her until I am sure.”

“I promise,” Wren spits. “But I do not understand. I do not feel you understand either. Many times I have called you Fae, but now it is more apparent than ever that you are not.”

“I know,” Five tells him. His eyes are sad. “I know what I am doing is not Fae. I know that vengeance for your clan is what matters to you, and I swear we will get it. I just have to be sure. I’ve spent so long trying to get back to them; if we kill her and we’re wrong… I can’t bear that Wren. But, I also know that you cannot bear to let the deaths of your loved ones go unavenged, so instead I ask that you simply wait. You are Fae, you are long lived. The hours, hell even if it's days, the time that passes while we confirm will be nothing to you in the long run.”

Suddenly, Wren deflates. “I have agreed, Five. Let us go, now while the power of the Hunt flows through me.”

His hand resting on Wren’s forearm, Five jumps them away from the hotel where Klaus had disappeared, and how long ago that seemed when in reality it had been mere minutes, and towards Vanya. Wren’s Hunt magic guides the jump, focusing on her location based on the wind’s whispers about her powerful music.

They arrive in Icarus Theatre as Vanya wraps up her performance. Five, like the other mortals, seems to quickly become enamoured by the sounds that Vanya produces, and they are nice, Wren will admit that, but for him they conjure much darker images. As he listens to her play, and feels the wave of Silver wash over him altered by its contact with humanity, he knows that, at the very least, it was a human who brought the Fae Realm down. He recalls his time in the Fae Realm, his recent brush with it when he wandered through it to arrive in this time, the taste of burnt Silver in the air. He tastes it again now.

Vanya completes her piece, her eyes finding Five and Wren at the back of the theatre. She smiles at them hesitantly, and begins to make her way over. Wren is unable, and unwilling, to hide the thunderous look on his face, though he does glamour himself to appear human, and it does not escape his notice that she stands as far from him as she can.

“Five! What brought you here? Who’s your friend? I wasn;t sure I would see you again soon; I thought maybe I had offended you, you know, after not believing you about the apocalypse.”

“Trust me,” Wren scowls. “The apocalypse is very much real, if you aren’t careful you could find yourself closely acquainted with it.”

“Ignore Wren,” Five tells her, glaring at the Fae. “He’s having a rough day. We came to talk to you about something private, do you have a place we can talk?”

“We can go back to my apartment, though I’m supposed to have a student meet me there in an hour.”

“Plenty of time,” Wren announces, shooting Five a look.

Vanya nods, her eyes flitting to Wren and then back to Five. “I’m sorry, who were you again?”

“Wren,” he answers and his smile is more of a grimace than anything else. “I raised Five in the apocalypse.”

She pauses, “I see.”

“No, you don’t, but you will.”

“Enough,” Five snaps, and they continue to Vanya’s apartment in silence.

There, they make their way into the kitchen. Wren perches on the edge of a chair, more like the bird he was named for than a human, but Vanya says nothing on the matter as she prepares them coffee.

“What’s going on?” She asks. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” Five answers, “We’re running out of time, and we think that you have pow-”

Wren cuts Five off. 

“Did you destroy the Fae Realm?” 


End file.
